


Love is never falling over

by Elemental



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alcohol, Character Study, Gen, Parenthood, Pre-Sburb/Sgrub
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-27
Updated: 2012-12-27
Packaged: 2017-11-22 14:33:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/610873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elemental/pseuds/Elemental
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Mother will do what is best for her child.</p><p>Even if you never wanted to be a Mom in the first place and you're terrified you're failing every step of the way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love is never falling over

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dashery](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dashery/gifts).



> For Dashery. You gave some wonderful prompts, and I hope this suits! Have a great New Year.

You never wanted to be a mom. 

Oh, you thought about it, of course you did. It was hard not to - the world around you was inundated with the sights and sounds and affirmations of motherhood and all of its Glory. Everywhere you went - from Berlin to Rhode Island, Calcutta to Changi, motherhood - no, _Motherhood_ , with all of its assorted trappings, haunted you. The commercials made your skin crawl. The idea of actually changing, shifting and straining your body, never mind the damage that the influx of hormones would bring, made you feel ill. 

Motherhood followed you wherever you went: the looks of pity from the mothers, young and old, gave you when you explained that no, you weren't planning on a family soon, later, or ever. When you tried to convince them you were quite content in your current lifestyle and could not ever imagine bringing a child into it. Their looks of pity at you, shared often between them, over their squawling, shrieking offspring was bad enough. As bad, or possibly worse, was the near constant assurances that one day you would change your mind. As if you did not know yourself. As if you hadn't made an informed decision! They would look at you with a knowing smile and say _just wait until you have children of your own_ , and any insistence that it would never happen fell on deaf ears.

You wouldn't be a bad mother, you'd never say that. It was just that Motherhood required far too much out of any sane individual. You'd probably have to stop drinking, or at least cut back, and that wasn't something you were interested in at all. And there was just so much responsibility. Late night feedings and diaper changes, and then schools and bullies and dating and trips to zoos and learning to drive. You'd have to settle down. Maybe that was the biggest roadblock. You'd have to tell Harley to find someone else for his research - you couldn't be taking the red-eye from Chatham to Paris with a toddler, not if you wanted to keep your own sanity and also not be killed by the other passengers. _And_ that couldn't be good for a child's health. They'd have to at least be raised in one country until they were old enough to walk around on their own you were sure, and that was what, six years? Seven? Oh, and there were passports and visas and you were sure there'd be all sorts of complications with those as well. Harley smoothed over most of your documents as it was but you'd been stopped at enough borders by now that you could only imagine how much more complicated a kid would make your life. No, you weren't in any position to raise a child properly, and changing your life to accommodate one was completely out of the picture.

You knew all of this: you'd made the arguments in half a dozen languages and in a dozen time zones and more times than you wanted to count and at least once finished it with a broken wine bottle over a man's head (he survived, and you'll be allowed back in the country in three more years). You knew all of the reasons why you'd never be a Mother, why you'd never wanted to be called Mom, and yet...

And yet...

Her eyes are violet. This is a genetic impossibility. Eyes come in many colours, from deep brown to blue that is so light you could call it grey. You're aware of a few illnesses that can affect colour as well. Albinism is the most common, though in humans that means blue-grey eyes with clear red lines around the pupil (also you're rather sure extreme cases include near to total blindness). She's looking at you and her eyes are a strong, deep purple, following your face as you move. She's not blind. Her eyes are just impossible.

Of course, so is the fact she appeared in front of you in the remains of a meteor crater, clutching a terribly ragged stuffed creature that looked like it should have been incinerated years ago. She's unharmed. Wearing a disposable diaper and a pink headband and there is not a scratch, not a mark on her, despite the fact that you would swear she just tumbled out of the sky and survived an explosive crash that charred the greenery around the blast radius. You need a drink. Another drink, anyway.

You have never wanted to be a Mother. You've spent years telling anyone within hearing range just how happy you have been with your no strings attached life, your love of one night stands, travel, fine wine and cheap booze, late night parties, and also telemetry results and star charts and watching the sun rise and waking up and forgetting the name of the city or the day and not least of all the warm body beside you and your tiny small condo where you stopped trying to keep plants because they always died and turned into little clusters of gross white mould and the dust cloths that sit over your furniture because you never stay home or in any one place for too long...

She's in your arms with her weight on your hip the way you've seen women carry countless children before and it feels so strangely natural you aren't even sure what to think. She smacks you in the face with the plush bunny and you hope it isn't diseased. She leans her cheek against your chest and sighs, just this tiny sound, and you wrap your scarf around her, open your jacket so you can tuck her inside of it against the cold, hope this will be enough until you get her home. What do you even know about caring for children? You are suddenly afraid, terribly afraid, and not for your own life the way you have faced in the past, in strange bars and foreign streets. You're afraid of her, afraid _for_ her, of doing something, anything wrong.

You walk away from the smoking hole in the ground and don't even once think about giving her to anyone else. Harley owes you. He owes you more than enough and if he doesn't you'll settle for threats. You found her. She's _yours_. He'll help you make it so.

+++++++++++++++++++++++

You don't _ever_ know what you're doing.

You spend nights poring over books, days researching websites and forums, evenings speaking with associates and acquaintances you know who have survived this trial before. You tolerate their tongue in cheek humor and the way they enjoy your uncertainty and lack of knowledge for answers that you can't find yourself. When the questions come - and of course they do - she's your niece. Family you were long estranged from, only surviving relative, you have the paperwork to prove it because legality has always been about having enough money to make bits of paper say what you want them to say. She's your Rose Lalonde, your little girl, and for all you fear someone will call you out as a liar and a thief it never happens. There is no search for a missing child, there is nothing but Harley's assurance that everything would be fine, just fine, look she's the same age as his own granddaughter isn't she precious?

You don't remember him having a granddaughter, but you'd never cared much about his personal life. You don't even think of that as suspicious until far too late.

It isn't just learning the basics - changing diapers and cleaning up puke and trying to find the matching pair of tiny as all hell socks when you do a load of laundry. It's the changes in your life. It's keeping food in the fridge, not just alcohol. It's learning that children of any age can't be left hungry, or thirsty, or alone. It's finding a new home when you discover the city air is making her ill and perhaps taking matters to an extreme when you find the architectural beauty that is Falling Over Waters and buy it outright. It's spending the night in the emergency room when her fever tops 104 degrees and biting your nails down to the quick when she's admitted for scarlet fever and you can't do a damned thing to fix it but wait. It's learning how to be helpless, for the first time in years, after swearing you would never, ever be again. It's admitting when you don't know something, and relying on others for help, when you've never learned how to trust anyone - least of all yourself.

It's taking a job at Skaia labs after Harley builds it close enough to home for you to accept the position. It's remembering travelling, but waiting now 'until she's older'. It's your French, German, Italian, growing rusty from disuse. It's forgetting what a proper baguette tastes like and making do with what your local grocery store will deliver. It's balancing work and family and failing at both, trusting random strangers to stay in your home and look after your child while you're in the lab and firing half a dozen before you find one that doesn't raid your liquor cabinet. It's being responsible. Responsible for someone else: Their life, their future, their knowledge and their entire place in this world.

It's learning to resent a three year old because they can't explain what's wrong. It's learning to be furious at a five year old because they won't explain what's wrong. It's needing a stiff drink in the morning just to get through the day, and a stiff drink in the evening to get through the night, and both of those drinks coming in multiple glasses.

+++++++++++++++++++++++

You were never meant to be a Mother. You try to console yourself with the fact that well, many people were never meant to be mothers and they have to learn as they go and their children grow but you're sure they fare better than you do. You're sure they can trust blindly in the school district, instead of insisting on private tutors because you can't bear her not to be at the top of her class or better. You can't trust that she'll get enough attention, not be lost in the crowds of other people's offspring. You're sure they don't hide when their daughters ask the difficult questions, you're sure they don't use expensive gifts as placeholders because the older she gets the more you're not sure how to touch her, speak to her, help her. You're sure their children don't compose long dramatic plays about how they are the embarrassing reminder of a one night stand. You're sure most seven year olds don't know what a one night stand is.

You're sure most nine year olds shouldn't be making their mothers gin and tonics, but some days are longer than others and you need all the help you can get.

When the Sburb project comes across your desk, of course you sign on. It's the culmination of your decade of travel for Harley, his years of archeological research and exploring and God only knows how many laws you've all broken. It might be nothing at all, of course. Or it might just be the thing that saves your whole world. Rose's world. If it means longer nights in the lab, you can make that sacrifice. Rose is a big girl. She can handle herself for a night or two - you can leave dinner in the freezer. You'll remember to do that, and she knows how to use the microwave and dishwasher safely. You can't find a babysitter these days because she keeps chasing them away - or 'creeping them out', but you won't worry. She's told you she can look after herself and it isn't as though you're not minutes away if she needs to call.

If you sometimes spend the night, or two, or three in the lab instead of coming home, well... Your Rose is a good girl. She always remembers to call you and tell you how she is, and if you forgot to make any dinner to put in the freezer in the first place, she has your credit card and can call for a pizza. You can make it up to her later, when this project is finished. The more you work on it the more you know, the more you are certain that it is important, so important, and even though Harley's disappeared you know he'd agree with you too. 

The end of the world is coming. You dream about it some nights, if you forget your nightcap.

You want only the best for your Rose. You might not be it, but you're all each other has and you will be damned if you won't at least try to make it all right.


End file.
